help, settings for ip and dns changed????

This morning I simply restarted my pc and I could not connect to my wireless network... my ip address, subnet mask, gateway address were way out of the norm... and my dns address and alternate was letters rather than numbers..

to fix I set a static ip and used subnet mask and gateway I took from one of my other pcs... this showed a local connection but no internet or messenger connection.. so I went to other computer and used the same dns and dns alternate from the other pc and everything seems to be working.. the problem I have now is that I am not sure if using the same dns numbers is fine or not, in other words am I gonna have problems later, and the biggest question is why did they change like that or what made them change... do I have malware or other issues that caused it... can anyone help me I know what the ip address and gateway address is but the subnet mask and dns address are two I do not understand. thanks a lot... J :confused

 

DNS - You can use those same numbers for your static entry in the DNS field.

IP address - if one of your computers IP address is something along the lines of 192.168.2.10, you must use an ip address like 192.168.2.11 or 192.168.2.9. As long as you do not use the same ip address on both computers, youll be fine.
The first three sets of numbers, in this case 192, 168, and 2 must be the same on all computers in your case. There are situations where this isnt true, but it easiest for you in this case to set it up that way.

Subnet mask should be the same on all computers.



As far as malware goes or how it happened in the first place, im not sure. Might not hurt to run through the read and run me in the malware forum though.
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407